The Garrote

Technical Specification & Archival Record

Technical Specification	Archival Record
Primary Method Name	Garrote (garrotte, garrote vil)
Primary Jurisdiction	Spain and Spanish colonial territories (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines)
Civilian Introduction	1812–1832 (formalized by Royal Decree of Ferdinand VII)
Key Mechanism Variations	Cord tourniquet (primitivo); iron collar with threaded screw; collar with posterior spinal blade/spike
Primary Mechanism of Death	Cervical vertebrae dislocation/spinal cord transection or carotid occlusion/asphyxiation
Final Civilian Use (Spain)	2 March 1974 (Salvador Puig Antich & Heinz Chez)
Constitutional Abolition	1978 (Article 15, Spanish Constitution); military code repeal in 1995

The garrote (or garrotte) served as the standard civilian method of judicial execution in Spain for over a century and a half.

It was introduced in 1812/13 at the beginning of the reign of King Ferdinand VII to replace the crude, agonizing form of hanging previously utilized across the Iberian Peninsula.

During the 19th century, at least 736 individuals—including 16 women—were legally garrotted in Spain.

While earlier archival registers remain incomplete, modern penal records reveal that some 96 people (including two women) were executed by garrote between 1900 and 1935.

Following the Spanish Civil War, a further 110 men and three women were put to death using the apparatus under the Franco regime.

Parallel executions also took place by firing squad during this era, which was typically handed down by military tribunals; however, military courts frequently tried civilian capital offences, including armed banditry into the 1950s and anti-regime terrorism.

Garrotting in the Mid-20th Century

Between 1950 and 1974, sixty-five men and two women were executed by garrote in various provinces of Spain, including one execution conducted in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.

All of these condemned individuals suffered either for aggravated murder, armed banditry, or major political terrorism.

In that same post-war period, eleven men were executed by military firing squad.

Origins and Early Mechanical Development

The garrote appears to have evolved from ancient penal practices, notably the early Chinese execution method known as the bow-string.

In that procedure, the condemned prisoner was secured to an upright wooden post drilled with two horizontal apertures, through which the ends of a cord from an archer’s bow were threaded and pulled taut by the executioner until the prisoner was strangled.

In the original, rudimentary Spanish version—the garrote primitivo—the prisoner was seated upon a low block with their back pressed firmly against an upright post.

A hemp rope loop was passed around the neck and through a hole in the timber.

The executioner inserted a short wooden stick into the loop and twisted it, tightening the cord to crush the windpipe and strangle the prisoner.

Because manual cord strangulation was slow and erratic, Spanish authorities sought a more uniform, mechanically sophisticated device that could extinguish life without the protracted writhing seen in short-drop hanging.

Later Mechanical Variations and the Spinal Blade

The next evolutionary iteration of the garrote comprised a heavy wooden chair or bench secured to a thick vertical post.

The condemned prisoner was immobilized with heavy leather straps securing the wrists, arms, waist, and ankles.

A hinged iron collar (collarín) was closed around the neck and locked into place.

Through the post ran a heavy threaded screw controlled by a long, cross-handled lever or weighted arm.

In many improved designs, the forward end of the screw was fitted with a sharpened steel spike or a star-shaped blade.

When the executioner pushed the operating lever, the iron collar pulled the victim’s throat backward against the post while the advancing spike or blade penetrated the back of the neck:

• The blade was designed to enter between the upper cervical vertebrae, crushing or severing the spinal cord and brainstem;
• The mechanical objective was to cause immediate unconsciousness from neurogenic shock rather than slow, agonizing strangulation.

In an alternative dual-collar pattern, two concentric brass bands were fitted to the apparatus.

One collar was secured directly to the threaded lever, while the outer collar remained immovably anchored to the wooden post.

When the executioner turned the screw, the inner collar was driven violently forward while the outer collar pulled backward.

If properly adjusted to the prisoner’s neck dimensions, this shearing action fractured or dislocated the cervical vertebrae instantly—producing rapid unconsciousness comparable to the British long drop hanging method.

Eyewitness Account of an Early 19th-Century Garrotting

An execution by garrote of a convicted highway robber named José de Roxas in Mexico was witnessed and recorded by English travel writer and journalist Richard Ford:

The condemned man mounted the platform and was seated on a short post with his back to a strong upright post. The executioner fastened the iron collar around his neck.

When all was ready, he took the lever in both hands and, at the pre-arranged signal, turned the lever, drawing the collar tight, while his assistant threw a black cloth over Roxas’s face.

A convulsive pressure of the hands and a heaving of the chest were the only visible signs of the passing of the robber’s spirit.

After a pause of a few seconds, the executioner peeped behind the cloth and, after giving another turn to the screw, removed it.

The dead man was slightly convulsed, the mouth open, and the eyeballs turned into their sockets.

This eyewitness account mirrors the physical phenomena observed in 19th-century short drop hangings.

While unconsciousness could occur relatively quickly under proper tension, the garrote could never mechanically guarantee instantaneous loss of consciousness, and in practice, it was rarely as swift or humane as a correctly calculated long-drop hanging.

Executions of Women by Garrote

The first woman legally garrotted in Spain was Juana Rivero, executed in Madrid on the 3rd of November 1824 for robbery.

On the 26th of May 1831, twenty-seven-year-old Mariana Pineda became the first woman executed by garrote for political treason in Andalusia.

Pineda had embroidered a liberal constitutional flag bearing the motto:

“Equality, Liberty, Law.”

The offending banner was burned before her eyes as she sat upon the scaffold.

During the execution, the forward spike of the garrote reportedly pierced through her neck tissues, protruding through her mouth.

Following established Spanish penal custom, her body was unstrapped, stripped of its garments (which were distributed to religious charities), shrouded in a coarse bedsheet, and interred in a cheap pine coffin.

On the 19th of July 1890, twenty-eight-year-old maidservant Higinia Balaguer became the last woman to suffer public garrotting in Spain.

She was executed at 4:00 a.m. before a crowd of several thousand onlookers at the “Field of the Guards” in Madrid for her complicity in the notorious Calle Fuencarral robbery-murder.

The execution scaffold stood five feet high and was accessed by seven wooden steps.

Public executions in Spain ceased permanently following the garrotting of Lluis Más and three co-defendants in Barcelona on the 4th of May 1897.

The first private execution conducted within prison walls took place in Barcelona on the 15th of June 1897, when Silvestre Lluis was garrotted for murder.

The final female garrotting occurred on the 19th of May 1959 at Valencia.

Twenty-eight-year-old Pilar Prades Expósito Santamaría was executed for the fatal arsenic poisoning of her employer, Doña Adela Pascual Camps.

She was put to death by state executioner Antonio López Guerra.

All three women executed in post-Civil War Spain were convicted of domestic poisonings:

1. María Domínguez Martínez (aged 23): Executed on 23 May 1949 at Huelva for the fatal poisoning of her employer;
2. Teresa Gómez Rubio: Garrotted on 16 February 1954 at Valencia for three murders committed in 1940/41;
3. Pilar Prades Expósito Santamaría (aged 28): Executed on 19 May 1959 at Valencia.

The Final Garrottings in Spain (1974)

The garrote was deployed for the last time on the 2nd of March 1974, when two men were executed simultaneously in different prisons:

• Salvador Puig Antich: A 25-year-old Catalan anarchist member of the Iberian Liberation Movement (MIL), garrotted in the parcel room of the Cárcel Modelo in Barcelona by executioner Antonio López Guerra for the shooting death of a police officer during an arrest;
• Heinz Chez (real name Georg Michael Welzel): An East German citizen executed in the provincial prison of Tarragona by executioner José Monero Renomo for the shooting of a Civil Guard lieutenant.

The mechanical garrote used for Puig Antich’s execution is preserved and displayed at the Fundación Camilo José Cela in Iria Flavia, Galicia.

The final executions carried out in Spain took place on the 27th of September 1975, but the garrote could not be used due to a logistical dilemma: Spain had only one remaining active executioner, while five condemned prisoners were housed simultaneously in three widely separated cities (Madrid, Barcelona, and Burgos).

Consequently, the Francoist authorities executed the five men by firing squad:

• Madrid: José Humberto Baena Alonso (aged 24), Ramón García Sanz (aged 27), and José Luis Sánchez-Bravo Sollas (aged 21), all convicted of murdering policemen;
• Barcelona: Juan Paredes Manotas (aged 21);
• Burgos: Angel Otaegui Echevarría (aged 33).

Capital punishment was abolished under Article 15 of the democratic Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the death penalty removed for all military wartime offences in 1995.

Physiological Impact and Lethality

Unlike standard long-drop hanging—which relies on kinetic energy and sudden deceleration to dislocate the spine—the mechanical garrote operated through static compression and mechanical leverage.

Depending upon the mechanical design and executioner skill, death resulted from three physiological pathways:

1. Spinal Cord Disruption: In models equipped with a posterior screw spike or blade, the advancing wedge forced its way between the cervical vertebrae (typically at the atlas and axis, $C1$–$C2$), severing or compressing the brainstem and upper spinal cord, terminating nervous impulses instantly.
2. Cerebral Hypoxia via Vascular Occlusion: Bilateral circumferential compression of the iron collar collapsed the carotid arteries (requiring approximately 11 psi of pressure) and internal jugular veins (requiring 4.5 psi). This halted blood perfusion to the brain, inducing unconsciousness within seconds when properly aligned.
3. Mechanical Asphyxiation: In botched cases where the collar was misaligned, improperly sized, or lacked an internal wedge, the apparatus acted as a blunt anterior clamp. The collar crushed the thyroid cartilage and trachea without breaking the neck, resulting in agonizing suffocation that lasted several minutes.

International Use Beyond Spain

The garrote was exported throughout the Spanish Empire, serving as the official execution method in colonial territories:

• Cuba: Employed throughout Spanish colonial rule and retained after independence, with the last execution by garrote occurring in 1959 before the Castro regime switched exclusively to the firing squad;
• Puerto Rico: Used until the island was ceded to the United States following the Spanish-American War of 1898;
• The Philippines: Retained as the standard civil execution apparatus under Spanish administration and continued by the United States colonial government until the electric chair was installed at Bilibid Prison in 1926;
• Portugal: Utilized as the statutory method for executing common civilian felons until Portugal abolished the death penalty for civil offences in 1867.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the difference between the “garrote ordinario” and the “garrote vil”?

Historically, Spanish penal law recognized three classes of execution based on social caste: garrote noble for the aristocracy (who were conveyed to the scaffold on horseback), garrote ordinario for ordinary citizens (arriving on a mule), and garrote vil (“vile” or ignominious garrote) for common felons, thieves, and outcasts. King Ferdinand VII’s Royal Decree of 1832 abolished class distinctions, establishing the standardized iron collar for all civilian capital sentences, though the colloquial name garrote vil persisted in public usage.

How did the mechanical garrote cause death?

When properly applied, the garrote worked through a combination of cervical dislocation and carotid artery compression. An iron collar closed around the front of the throat while a heavy threaded screw advanced a metal blade or spike into the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord and inducing immediate unconsciousness. If misaligned, the device crushed the windpipe, causing death through slow asphyxiation.

Who were the last people executed by garrote in Spain?

The last executions by garrote were carried out on 2 March 1974, when Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich was executed in Barcelona and East German refugee Heinz Chez was executed in Tarragona.

Who was the last woman executed by garrote?

The last woman executed by garrote was twenty-eight-year-old Pilar Prades Expósito Santamaría, who was put to death in Valencia on 19 May 1959 for murdering her employer with arsenic.

When was capital punishment abolished in Spain?

Civilian capital punishment was effectively abolished under Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 following the transition to democracy. All remaining capital provisions in the Military Penal Code for wartime offences were formally repealed by the Spanish Parliament in 1995.

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